Forum:Joe Steele Templating
:Imput on the brown? There is a gray shade called "timberwolf". It's nice, but I'm worried gray will get as ubiquitous as blue. TR 22:33, December 29, 2011 (UTC) :It will do. Seems a shame to pass up such an obvious use for timbereolf, but you're right: If the goal is to diversify our colored generally, we don't want more gray. And there's always Not All Wolves. Turtle Fan 21:50, December 30, 2011 (UTC) ::Brown looks pretty good. W.r.t. Not All Wolves, I don't believe short stories have their own templates, just those of book collections (in this case for Departures (collection)). Character templates are for a generic short story character and not story specific. ML4E 22:29, December 30, 2011 (UTC) :::They don't. Very few short stories embrace enough characters, places, and events to justify individualized templates. NaW, for example, has 5 characters and 1 setting. IIRC, there are no historical figures in the mix. I can't see much purpose in creating a template system for roughly six articles. :::So all short stories are defaulted to purple. ::::I was speaking mainly in jest. Turtle Fan 20:44, January 1, 2012 (UTC) :::Now if we wanted to colorcode by short story collection, or reconsider this policy as applied to stories like "Joe Steele" or "Ready for the Fatherland", where we have several articles, I'm open to that. TR 18:51, January 1, 2012 (UTC) ::::The obvious choice for "Joe Steele" would be steel gray, which brings us back to the greater problem. I like the idea of colorcoding by anthology, and nominate timberwolf gray for Departures, not just because it includes NaW but because it seems a good match for the cld-looking, foreboding cover image. Turtle Fan 20:44, January 1, 2012 (UTC) I realize TF was speaking mainly in jest, but I do think we should revisit the question of color coding "Joe Steele". I'm hesitant to do this because then it opens the door to color coding all of the stories, which I think is unnecessary, but I think JS is so obviously unique among HT stories in that: :1. It covers a period of about 20 years about as many pages. (191 took five and 1/2 volumes to get that far.) :2. It embraces many articles, 46 characters and another 48 in the general category. While not quite as big as most HT novels, it's still quite a few articles ahead of nearly all of the stand-alone short stories; only "News From the Front" comes close, with 57 general articles and 24 characters. After that, total articles for the average short story, general and character, is roughly 50. Anyway, I throw it out for there for the admins to discuss. TR 20:45, March 2, 2012 (UTC) :I just did a bit of spot-checking and the situation is even worse that what TR suggests for other short stories. In most you would be lucky to get a dozen articles with 2-3 characters. Only a few reach 50 general + character combined. I see we have color coded fictional characters for Agent of Byzantium and A Different Flesh which makes sense since they are referred to as fix-up novels. I believe color coding by collection makes sense and perhaps the few short stories with over 50 combined articles too. ML4E 23:33, March 2, 2012 (UTC) ::We could say 50 articles "earns" its own color. If the number of stories that do this is as small as ML4E suggests, the risk of this setting a dangerous precedent is slight. Turtle Fan 02:34, March 3, 2012 (UTC) :I took a more detailed look and found the following: ::Before the Beginning C:34 + G:28 = 62 ::Les Mortes d'Arthur C:15 + G:37 = 52 ::The Last Article C:11 + G:35 = 46 :The rest fall off sharply (the next highest being mid-30s articles). Some of the stories haven't been done yet so if and when they are, they may break the 50 articles level. I'm thinking of The Boring Beast in particular. ML4E 21:00, March 3, 2012 (UTC) ::Ok, so two ideas (well, there is always the third option of preserving the status quo): ::: Color code stories by collection, with the various uncollected stories remaining in purple. :::Color code stories of sufficient depth and scope. Since some have been collected and some have not, this would probably make the above idea unworkable. TR 02:43, March 4, 2012 (UTC) ::::Unworkable? Not at all. We can colorcode the collected stories and make exceptions for the fifty plussers--There are only five. Turtle Fan 06:06, March 4, 2012 (UTC) ::That was my thought. Several stories (one each from Agent of Byzantium and A Different Flesh, for example) appear in multiple collections so they should be coded to the oldest or themed collection. Those with 50+ get their own color. ML4E 21:37, March 6, 2012 (UTC)